After a year of training and auditioning, Brody landed the role of Barry Williams in the 2000 TV movie Growing Up Brady. He was cast in recurring roles on Gilmore Girls as Dave Rygalski, Lane's bandmate and love interest, and the Canadian comedy television series The Sausage Factory. In 2001, he played a small cameo in American Pie 2, named as "high school guy". He was one of two high school guys that get chased away from Steve Stiflers party. In 2003, he wrote Home Security (a short film), appeared in the feature film Grind, and began playing his most famous role to date, Seth Cohen, a slightly awkward teenager, on the television show The O.C. The role turned Brody into a teen idol, with the character having been described by the Los Angeles Times as "TV's sexiest geek" and by Time as having "redefined" the screen persona of "unapologetic" nerdiness; his character (defined by director Jon Kasdan as the "new kind of nerdy Jewish guy: both self-deprecating and self-obsessed") has sin